


OC Tober 2020 Prompt Fills

by potato_writes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Multi, legends verse, oc tober, this is pretty angsty ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 20,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26755012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes
Summary: A series of prompt fills for OC Tober 2020.Also posted on Tumblr.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Sunrise (Lothiriel Kelwyn)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking part in oc-tober again, still using prompts from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr. These are all originally posted on Tumblr under potatothecat, and I'm simply compiling them here so they're easier for me to find again later. All of these characters are my own from my extended Legends universe (that really needs a better title it's been like three years now), so please don't borrow them for your own work! I'll try to add to the tags as October goes on, and any trigger warnings will appear in the chapter notes.
> 
> for chapter 1: references to death, grief, and mourning.

The day after her mother dies, she stands on the ramparts and watches the sun rise over the ocean, painting the sky pink and red, glowing golden over the water as it assumes its position among the clouds for yet another circuit of the world, yet another day to pass by. It’s merely another cog in the endless machine of life, ticking on no matter what happens in the world below, no matter what tragedies wrack the land it shines down on so brightly.

She could make it storm if she wanted to, darken the clouds to reflect her mood and send lightning flaring over the ocean, raging and bitter and mournful as she tries to adjust to this new world, this world where her mother is gone. She could set waves to pounding against the cliffs by the city, could capsize the fishing boats and tear down the banners and scream her wrath and her pain up to the clouds as thunder roars back at her, a deadly conversation between the grieving and the storm.

But she doesn’t want to, can’t find it in herself to summon her power from where it boils just under her skin and let it rage at the world around her. How could she do such a thing, when the city needs to be fed by the fishing boats and the traders need to cross the water and the army she’s supposed to command needs a day of sun to comfort them after the night brought death to their walls and fear to their hearts? How can she dare to blot out the sun and tear down the walls, all to channel a fury she’s barely certain she actually feels? 

What would her mother say, if she were here? Would she be proud of her daughter for her restraint, for not destroying everything before her as a small comfort in a trying time? Would she shake her head at hearing her daughter’s grief-filled thoughts and walk away, unable to look at the disappointing child who was never quite what she was supposed to be? Would she reach out to comfort her, soothing with the gentle words she remembers from long ago, before war came to their shores and everything shattered into a million little pieces?

But of course, her mother isn’t here. Her mother won’t be here ever again, no matter how much she wants her to be.

It’s odd how the world goes on after tragedy strikes, how the sun rises again the next morning, how the fishing boats head out onto the water for another day of work, how the war trudges on without any sign of stopping. Her mother is dead, and nothing is the same, and yet at the same time everything is exactly as it was the day before. She is still here, still adrift in a sea of expectations and planning and anxious warriors looking for a leader, and a new day is dawning.

They need her in the city centre, need her orders after the catastrophe on the walls last night. They’ll be looking to her, asking her opinion, calling for her orders, begging her for answers that she doesn’t have. She has to go back down, has to straighten her spine and fix her hair and pretend she knows what to do, and she cannot show them her grief or her pain or her anger lest she set them to worrying and fretting as well. 

She cannot remain up here watching the sunrise forever, nor can she go to the stables and ride away, ride until all her thoughts have fled and nothing remains but the thunder of hoofbeats and the wind whipping at her hair. The world goes on, and she must do the same.

Still, she lingers for a moment, two moments, longer, watching as the sun rises above the horizon and shines golden and distant above the pure white of last night’s snow, sparkling against the clear blue water, reflecting off the silver city, illuminating the woman standing on the city walls contemplating death, and life, and how none of them can alter the steady patterns of life as it ticks on, day after day, sunrise after sunrise.


	2. Mercy (Morfran)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> warnings for this chapter: mentions of prison and imprisonment.

He never thought he’d be grateful to be a prisoner again.

After so many years trapped in the darkness of his first prison, he was determined to never return to a cell even if that meant his death. He’d been willing to die on yesterday’s battlefield when he first stepped onto it, had expected to, in fact. That he lives now, that he’s grateful for it, is a completely foreign thought to the man he thought he was, the man he’d pretended to be for so long.

Part of him wants to blame the girl, the young spitfire with all the best of her parents and all the power of his father whose passion and anger drove him to surrender rather than offer his head as he had planned to. The other part of him admits that he really didn’t want to die, that he’s much happier to live in a cage than to die senselessly for a cause he doesn’t even believe in. 

His fate has yet to be determined, though he suspects he’ll be allowed to live. The secret he inadvertently revealed on the battlefield will need to be discussed, and his power means that only he can train the girl, can make her into the force of nature she needs to be if she wants to help her people win this war. Killing him now would be foolish, though he wouldn’t put it past the ice-cold queen of this kingdom to do it anyways in order to save her own skin.

Not that it would do her any good. The desert king and the night queen know the truth now, and the girl will have deduced it as well if she’s half as intelligent as she is skillful. The time for hiding the truth is long gone. In actuality, it was gone well before this war even began, but that’s not his concern.

Not yet.

So, he likely won’t die. He’ll remain a prisoner, of course, but he’s been a prisoner for longer than this before, and in a darker, more terrifying place on top of that. He doesn’t enjoy his return to a cage, but it’s better than death. Better than serving his father for all eternity, biting his tongue at cruelties and pretending he’s content with his lot in life. Imprisonment is kind by comparison, a small mercy in this miserable life he’s been leading for far too long.

He wonders how the people of this kingdom will react when they learn he has been spared, that their rulers showed him mercy in the face of a far more important revelation. Will they snarl and curse, damn him with every word and rue the decision of the warriors and nobles? Will they rejoice, though he can’t think of why they would? Or will they simply not care, nod and frown and go about their lives without another thought for the man who could have destroyed them all if he’d really wanted to?

They probably won’t care. The petty disputes of the nobility are meaningless to them, no more sensed than the war he helped prolong. Another small mercy. He doesn’t think he could handle the weight of an entire kingdom’s hatred on top of everything else that’s happened.

His brothers would mock him were they here, taunt him for counting such small mercies when he’s in a cell again, humiliated and defeated and alone. But his brothers were cruel men, with little love in them and no compassion at all, and he does not want to be their hero any longer. 

So yes, he is grateful for the mercy that spared his life, even if it returned him to imprisonment. It’s the least he deserves after all his crimes. His brothers can laugh and mock all they want from whatever hell they’ve found themselves in, because he intends to make changes in his life, and the mercy his enemies have shown him is the greatest gift anyone could offer to a man who desires to become the person he once dreamed of being, a long time ago when the world was young and the future still seemed bright.


	3. Youth (Princess Alana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

They say youth is wasted on the young.

She doesn’t agree, though she would never say so where anyone could hear her. Too many of her friends grew old before their time, so scarred by the horrors they saw that it became impossible for them to be considered children—even though that was what they were, at the time. She’s seen it, watched it happen time and time again with fear lurking in her heart as she wonders, _will I be next?_

Her turn came soon enough, the war snatching her out of her comfortable childhood and forcing her to think like a leader, like a future queen in a world where their time could run out at any given moment. They all had to grow up eventually, forbidden from remaining children in a world at war. 

Now they are adults, the war long behind them, their own children growing up far slower than they did. Her daughters will never know the horrors she did, will have time to savour their youth as they play in the gardens and race each other through the palace halls. They are safe from what she and her sister had to endure. They will be children, not young men and women grown old before their time.

She and her friends, her family, they worked so hard to ensure this future could exist. Now that it’s upon them, it seems an odd thing, something too fragile to grasp for long. She often catches herself pacing the halls at night, a lantern in hand, waiting for the horn to sound, the bells to ring, the guards to call her to the gates, war to arrive on her shores like it did during her own childhood. 

She’s grown too accustomed to war, to be waiting for it even years after the last stroke fell, after the last battle was won. What she fears doesn’t come, will not come. They drove it out of their homeland a long time ago. 

The scars don’t fade, though. Not for those who learned too many hard lessons in their youth, who sacrificed their childhood innocence to the great war machine that marched on and on and on until the conflict was over at long last. Her daughters may play in the gardens, carefree and happy, but she cannot forget. She will not forget.

She must not forget.

If she does, what will happen? Will she grow complacent, let darkness creep into the heart of her kingdom as her neighbour to the north once did? Will she be forced to send her too-young children off to war, all the while fearing they may not return? Will she become her own mother, hiding the truth of her feeling in order to pretend she is impenetrable, that no weapon can touch her?

The war took that from her, her ability to relax. Her ability to forget. Much like her youth, it was stolen away when the war came calling, left as another one of those things it is impossible for her to reclaim now that they are at peace. She will never truly be as calm as she pretends to be, as serene as the mask she wears whenever he daughters, so young, so innocent, ask about that time long past, the dark days of the war when hope faded and all seemed lost.

So no, she does not think youth is wasted on the young. In truth, she does not think many of her people know what youth is, know how to be young and carefree the way their children are beginning to rediscover. 

The war takes, and takes, and takes, and never gives them anything in return. They have all learned that lesson too well by now. They all bear the scars to ensure they will never be able to forget it.

But how she wishes she could go back to the summer days of her childhood, when she was young and all seemed well with the world. How she wishes she could go back to the brief golden days of her youth and revel in them for just a little while longer, unafraid and uncaring of the darkness that lurked beyond the corner of life, in the gloomy area between the youthful summer and the blood-stained winter snow.


	4. Ambush (Queen Maeveen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

Every night, she dreams of wolves.

Sharp teeth gleam in dim light as she races through a forest, low growls emitting from the bushes all around her. She cannot see them, but she knows they’re there, waiting for her to tire so they can ambush her in some small clearing, tear her to pieces somewhere too far from anyone who might be able to help her. 

Every morning, she wakes with her heart pounding in her chest, her gaze still filled with the cold brown eyes of the leading wolf as it leaps out of the undergrowth to tackle her to the ground. Every day, she passes the girl with the same dark eyes in the hall and her fury grows, watching the girl wander about unchecked, unrestrained by the fools who think her a hero.

And every night, she dreams. Every night, the wolves come for her.

She’s no fool, she knows it’s a premonition. Her foresight is not especially strong, but even she can understand something so straightforward, so clear. Her enemies surround her even now, led by the girl with the dark brown eyes and far too much power as they wait for her to falter, for the right moment to spring their trap and steal away the power she has fought and bled and killed for, the power she has earned through years of hard work and suffering. 

Her friends would call her foolish if they knew, would laugh the matter off and dismiss her concerns as irrational, paranoid. But they trust the girl, believe her to be their saviour like all the rest, and she can no longer be certain they too are not part of the conspiracy. 

She never sees any wolf but the first one, the one with the girl’s eyes, but she knows who they are. She could name them all, if she wanted to, and every single answer would be correct. The conspiracy against her is not a subtle one, no matter how much they try to be.

Her enemies lie in wait all around her, waiting to ambush her the moment she missteps. She cannot escape them, nor can she stop them, for all of her allies are blind to the danger but one fool who thinks himself a greater man than he truly is. She cannot even trust her own daughter, who is a friend to the girl who will someday be the ruin of them all. It only goes to show that she should never have given any of them power, that she was right to doubt her choice to do so all those years ago, when the world was young and she still could trust those around her. 

It is too late now, with the wolves prowling around her and the ambush lurking just around the corner. There is nothing she can do to prevent it. Her dreams tell her that much.

None of them will mourn her when she is gone, at least not right away, not when they still think their cause is righteous and justified. But after a little time has passed, when the girl reveals her true colours and disappoints them as she inevitably will, then they will regret what they have done. Then they will come back to her, begging on their knees, asking forgiveness in exchange for her driving out the evil they foolishly put on the throne. 

She has yet to decide what she will do when that day comes, when the hour of judgement comes at last and everyone is looking to her for salvation. But she does know that she’ll enjoy it immensely, finally being able to wield that power over them as they tremble at her feet, dreading that she might refuse them as a punishment for wronging her with their foolish conspiracies and their reckless trust in a girl who should never have been given power.


	5. Beloved (King Sloane)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

His eldest daughter once told him his curse was that he loved too much.

If she were different, he’d have thought it a strange thing to say, far wiser and more poetic than most would expect of their children. But she is who she is, and so he simply nodded and accepted her words, knowing all too well the painful truth of them.

He does love too much, and it often tears him apart. Is he wrong to love all his children, even the ones he didn’t know fo for so long? Is he betraying his wife by falling for another years after she passed on? Is he doing his past loves ill by pursuing a relationship with a fellow soldier and commander, despite that being no more than physical and emotional comfort in the midst of a terrible war?

And yet, he cannot be any other way. He cannot deny that he loves all four of his children, nor that he loves them in vastly different ways. He cannot deny that he has loved two women fiercely, nor can he deny his burgeoning relationship with a man he once thought his enemy. He cannot deny that his friends are no less beloved to him than any of the others, that there is room in his heart for all of the people he cares for so greatly, will always care for no matter what happens.

(“You are too slow to anger,” one of his fellow rulers had snarled at him once, raging at nothing and everything all at once. He has never bothered to make room for her in his heart. “Your capacity for forgiveness will be your downfall.”

In truth, her arrogant fury led to her downfall, not long after she spat those words at him like they were something to be ashamed of. He is still here, as are the others who chose to forgive and love rather than to rage and hate.)

He does not dare to make claims about how those he loves feel about him, but he would like to think he is as beloved to them as they are to him. He would never presume to know for certain, of course. It’s a sweet thought though, a comfort on the days he fears what the new future they are building in the aftermath of the war might bring.

It is much harder to believe in the future after the war, oddly enough. He once thought it would be the other way around, though he supposes that the desperate circumstances of a conflict mean that nothing is guaranteed, that it is easier to take the plunge when nothing is certain. Now, with the rest of their lives ahead of them, the doubts have a chance to resurface, to set him to wondering if he is truly loved or if they are merely tolerating him until the rebuilding ends and they all can retreat to their own corners of the world once more.

But the fire and fury has faded and died, and now the ones left standing are trying to make something out of what remains. The loves they forged in wartime are being tested now in times of peace, and for the most part they are holding steady, unshaken in the calm that is finally settling over the land. 

In this new era, when they are beginning to learn who they are outside of combat, they are all beloved to someone. Even him, though he doubts it often. But as the weeks go by, as their wounds heal, his certainty begins to grow, little by little. His children love him, demonstrate the fact with every attempt they make to pull him into things, to keep him involved when his leadership becomes less necessary. His friends love him, or else they would not make such an effort to take him for drinks on the evenings where they have spent too much time discussing the dark deeds of the past. And his lovers, both past and present, they must love him too, even those now dead and gone. He cannot imagine a world where they would have stayed with him for so long otherwise.

He still loves too much, of course. But he is loved in return, and that is far more important than how divided his heart is. He has room enough in it to share, anyways.


	6. Luxury (Gina Tiananis)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

When she was a child growing up in one of the city orphanages, the palace and the city centre seemed impossibly far away. Only a few blocks separated her from the homes of the nobles and the royals, but they might as well have been an endless expanse to her young mind, unable to comprehend distances much longer than the market street the orphanage was situated on.

She knows now that the gap isn’t that far, both in terms of distance and wealth. The nobility of her kingdom are not hoarders of wealth, do not dwell in the lap of luxury without a care for the troubles of the common folk. Nor is the distance impossible to span—she would know, she walks it nearly every week.

Her new life has a surreal quality when she considers it from the perspective of her childhood self, who thought of the nobility as wealthy, powerful, infallible in the eyes of a young girl who’d never really left her neighbourhood before. Now, she spends her days with the same nobles she once believed were impossibly far away. Now, they heed her opinions, ask what she thinks on important matters that impact the entire kingdom. A far cry from her orphanage childhood, indeed.

Despite what many might assume, she never truly had a hard life, never had to fight for food or clothing or shelter with the other orphans of her age group. The orphanages of the city are well-funded and fully staffed, something she can thank the nobles for now that she understands the politics of her kingdom better. When she travels, she encounters places where the orphans aren’t nearly as well cared for, and feels even more grateful for the gifts she didn’t realize she had been given until much too recently.

Still, there’s a luxury to her new life that never existed in her old one, brought on by a sense of purpose, an understanding of her place in this new world they’re forging out of the ashes of a war. She used to be aimless, uncertain of where to go once she grew old enough to forge her own path in life. Back then, she never thought she’d have the luxury of choice. 

No one did, if she’s entirely honest. They either became fighters or didn’t, and that’s not much of a choice when your kingdom is at risk of burning to the ground around you. It was never much of a problem for her when she was finally forced to make that call, not when she had no desire to see her homeland be overrun by enemies determined to destroy everything in their paths. 

Now, though…

Now, she has more choices than she knows what to do with. She could continue fighting, could return to her old ways from before she joined the war and pretend she never knew what it was like to be happy. She could stay on as a military figure only, or as a technological mastermind, or as both if she’d prefer that option. She can be a common orphan, or a general, or a noble lady, or even a queen.

If only she could tell her childhood self _that_ one!

She doesn’t have to decide right away, though. That’s another luxury of this new world, time. They never had that in the war, when any day could be their last and every action had to be carefully calculated before it happened. But time and choices are the two chief luxuries of this new era of peace and prosperity, and she’s more than eager to savour those luxuries for as long as she possibly can.


	7. Cliff (Lothiriel Kelwyn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

When she was small, her mother taught her to swim beneath the towering cliffs of the city she calls home, helping her to splash in shallow pools until she grew confident enough to paddle away on her own, heading out into deeper water and letting the waves carry her along until she returned to shore once again. Later, as an older child, she leapt off those same cliffs with her friends, plummeting down to the water below with shrieks and laughter in equal measure. As a junior warrior, she used to ride along the cliffs as fast as she could, spurring her horse on to such great efforts that they both slept for hours upon their return to the city. 

Now, as a grown woman, she stands on the same cliffs that brought her so much joy and stares out at the sea, watching as the water churns and boils, stirred up by the wrath of an oncoming storm looming on the horizon. There’s no laughter today, no children splashing beneath the cliffs or horses racing along the edge, dangerously close to falling down to the raging water far below. Today, there is only her, and the cliffs, and the sea and the sky rising up in a massive cloud of wind and water, poised to smash against the cliffs and cleanse the world of pain and dirt and blood for a little while, at least.

She used to love days like this, used to beg her mother to take her down to the harbour or over to the cliffs so she could stare at the storm as it flashed and raged and feel the rain soak her through until her mother finally coaxed her back inside. Later on, she’d go out by herself and sit on the edge of the cliffs as the rain poured down and lightning flashed over the ocean. But that was before. Things were different then.

Now, she could summon a storm twice, three times as powerful as this one, could set two storms against each other and watch as the world crumbles to pieces around her. Now, she’s seen too many days like this, too many days where the sky opens up and soaks battlefields or tired armies in rain in a storm that’s still not enough to disguise the stench of blood and dirt and sweat that follows them no matter where they go. 

Now, she’s the last one left of that group who fought together long ago, the only one alive to stand on the cliffs and gaze out at the storm as it leaps and dances with the waves and the cliffs and the sky. They’re all dead and gone, even her fellow immortals who once rode with her across the worlds, bearing a torch of justice in their hands. By winning them the war, she doomed herself to lose them all, down to the very last one.

She tries not to think too hard on the matter, tries to think of other things, happier times, the days when they played in the shallows or leapt off the cliffs or raced up to the bluff with the wind whipping at their hair. But today’s been a melancholy day, one suited for mourning the past she had no choice but to leave behind long ago. It might just be a product of the storm, but in truth she’s lived too long to know for certain what drives her moods.

On rare occasions, like today, she wonders what would have happened if she’d died that day on the battlefield as she’d intended to. Would that have been enough to secure their victory, or would the others have needed to continue fighting a war they could never win? Would the city she still calls home be here right now, or would it have ben razed to the ground when even the magic on the walls was no longer enough to protect it?

So many questions, and no one is left to answer them. The one friend who could is gone along with all the rest, and she comes back here too rarely to seek answers through any other avenue. 

Besides, she doesn’t truly need them, nor does she honestly want to know what might have been, what could have been. She has enough regrets as it is, standing alone on the cliffs of her beloved city with no one beside her to laugh with or to jump with or even to sit with and watch the storm rage. She’s alone in the world, alone on the cliffs as a storm brews and the water churns and her eyes fill with tears that she’ll never allow herself to shed.


	8. Festival (Fianna Kelwyn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> for such an innocuous prompt, this one turned out, uhh...super sad?

She used to dance, when she was young.

Before the war began, before she had reason to be concerned about what might befall her children if the truth was ever discovered, she would spend her days eagerly awaiting the next festival, thrilled by any chance to let her feet fly along with the music, to let the hours of the night flow past until she fell into her bed at dawn, exhausted by the night’s revelry. 

Remember when the world was simple, she thinks to herself some nights, when the fighting’s been thick and the commanders are arguing and her daughter won’t look her in the eye anymore. Remember when everything used to make sense?

Of course, simplicity came at the cost of complacence, of sitting by and letting her friend hurt and twist the country into an unrecognizable mimicry of what it once was. Everything is easier when you turn a blind eye to the truth, and she did precisely that for far too many years, preferring to bury her head in the sand and pretend all was well, that she was not aiding her friend in the near destruction of everything they once held dear.

If it were not for her children and the other nobles who were wiser than her, they might have lost the war before it truly began. There never would have been another festival for her to dance at, for the songs of her people to ring in the air and restore the joy the war made them forget.

And that would have been on her, at least partly. The fact that she let the atrocities slide for so long means she has no right to deny the role she played in it all coming to this, to them gathering in a kingdom that is not their own and frantically planning for a future that may not come, a next festival that may never occur. She is at fault here, no matter how much she wishes to deny that truth by doing as she did before and pretending it doesn’t exist.

It’s no wonder her daughter won’t meet her gaze, if she’s been thinking like that her entire life. 

Is it too late for her? Has she become so entrenched in her ways that it’s impossible for her to change, to learn from the errors of her past and become the person she once thought she was? She’s certain no one would say so if she asked, but many of them are still her friends, still willing to tell her what they think she wants to hear.

And does she really want to know the truth? Does she really want to hear someone tell her that no, it is too late, that she lost her chance to improve years ago when she let her friend be banished without even trying to stop it? 

No, she doesn’t. But she thinks that perhaps the doubting voice in her mind is right, that her worst mistakes have made it so no one here trusts her anymore, so that she can no longer freely dance at the festivals without remembering the choices of her past that haunt her day and night, year after year. She should have done something earlier, turned away from her friend the queen and said no, you cannot do this, I will not let you do this anymore. But she did not, and now she must live with the consequences of her inaction and rue them more with every passing day. 

What a fool she was, to think she could have it all, the festival and the truth, the cruel friends and the kind ones. Now they are all slipping away from her, leaving her stranded in a world where she is no longer needed and her daughter will no longer look her in the eyes out of exhaustion brought on by the mistakes she made while trying to protect those who did not need her protection and failing to take care of those who did.


	9. Mentor (Elsha Daelond)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

She’s alternately terrified and proud whenever one of the youngsters she helped mentor sets off on their first solo mission. Proud, because they’ve matured so much in so little time, because they’ve grown and learned enough to be able to operate on their own, without aid from her or anyone else. Terrified, because they’re all so young, too young to be going out into the world on their own without anyone standing behind them. She’s been doing this for a long time, but the feelings never fade or change. Every young warrior she sends off into the unknown might be the next one to fall, the next one cut down by the constant, unfaltering enemy in this never-ending war. Every one she mentors reminds her of her own children in a distant way, even if they’re nothing alike in looks or personality. But her children were too young as well. They all are, no matter how much her friends like to pretend they’re not.

She doesn’t regret mentoring any of them, would do it all again for each one of them if she were provided the choice. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when she gets the reports, hears through the path of rumour that another one has perished on the front lines, or in the field, or somewhere far away from home where no one they loved was around to reach them or hold them in their last moments.

Every year, she looks at the new batch of trainees she’s meant to shape into warriors, the new group she must mentor during this stage of their path to the war and their inevitable deaths, and prays that this group will be the one to save them, the one to finally bring the war to an end and let them know peace at long last. It’s a fool’s hope, one that can only be brought about by everyone working in unison—something that will never happen unless her queen learns to accept the truth of her own failings. But the hope is all she has anymore, and she cannot bring herself to sacrifice this one small comfort when the world around her is so dark, so foreboding.

This year’s group is more promising than any previous one, with the young prodigy leading their ranks and so many other skillful young fighters working their way up the ranks of the army. But for once, the feeling of pride as she watches them depart for their first solo missions is impossible to find.

There’s a dark truth hidden in their boasts about this particular batch of young warriors, one that reveals the fatal flaw in this world of theirs, this system they’ve been working with for so many years now. The skill of this group means that they will never be able to escape, that they will be the first of many trainees who she watches be sent into battle at far too young an age, even younger than those who preceded them. As long as the queen she still calls friend sits the throne, the cycle will continue until they have destroyed themselves, torn to pieces by the weight of their own pride, their own determination to be the very best there is.

How can she mentor this group, when she knows they are doomed to die in a year, two years, ten years? Even the prodigal youngster with fire blazing in her eyes and steel in her spine will falter eventually, leaving them without one of their few hopes for the future, one of the few promises that things might improve, that the war might actually end. How can she just sit by and watch as they are marched to their deaths, still children in mind if not in body? How can she have permitted this to go on for so long?

Yet she lets it happen, sits by silently as her friends brag of the skill, the strength that lurks within this group of trainees she’s preparing to head out to the slaughter. She holds her tongue when the nobles gather, says nothing when her eldest daughter paces the floor and rages about the injustice, the wrongness, the danger of it all. She should speak, should use her power to make a difference and save these children from their own destruction, but will any of them heed her? Will her voice truly be enough to save them from this?

She doesn’t know, but she also has not tried. 

The youngsters must consider her such a terrible mentor. She can’t even be bothered to stick up for them, to speak where they are ignored, to protect them when the system she has enabled for far too long ensures they are no longer able to protect themselves.


	10. Silence (Princess Gabrielle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

She learned the value of holding her tongue at a young age. She had to, when her mother would harshly punish any dissension from the norm, from what they were taught was the family way. She’s never agreed with her family’s actions, still doesn’t even years later. But she couldn’t say any of that in front of them.

Part of her regrets choosing to stay silent now. Could she have stopped the worst of their crimes if she’d spoken up? Her mother always favoured her, after all. Perhaps her words would have been enough to change them, sway them from the path they’d set out on long ago. Perhaps she could have prevented the war, the devastation, the suffering so many had to endure.

It’s highly likely that it wouldn’t have worked out so neatly, however. Her mother was not a kind woman, and her uncle and grandfather were little better. If she’d said something, she probably would have died long ago, butchered by a family that refused to allow even the slightest disagreement with their way of doing things. And then where would her allies have ended up?

So, silence it had to be, no matter how conflicted she still is about making that choice. It was the right one, though. It was.

Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? her mother’s snide voice says, echoing deep in the back of her mind. Years have passed since her mother died, yet she’s still haunted by those biting words, those burning silver eyes judging every action she took. Pinning her in place at the dinner table and keeping her frozen there, biting her tongue against the urge to speak up as her mother wove another nefarious plan, as her uncle leered at the servants, as her grandfather raged and raved until someone had him thrown out of the room. 

I made the right choice, she tells herself, late at night when her doubts swirl in her head and keep her awake long after everyone else in the city has succumbed to their dreams. They couldn’t be allowed to continue hurting people. They brought their fates upon themselves.

They were still her family, though, no matter how horrific their actions were. There’s still a hole where her grandfather used to sit and rant about perceived injustices, an empty space where her uncle used to loom silent and menacing, a beat of silence her mother once filled with sharp words and a smooth tone. They were her family, no matter how much she hated them, and she cannot forget the role she played in their deaths, the fact that she betrayed them, lied to them for years on end.

She doesn’t speak of it now, continues the long-held habit of biting her tongue and staying silent when her friends dare to ask about her time spying on her own family. They rarely ask, sensitive enough to recognize she doesn’t want to speak of it. She’ll never admit to being grateful for it, but she is.

In truth, she finds the silence grows almost comforting after a while. Most people hate having so much time to think about the horrors of the past, but she appreciates having that time to process everything that went down back then. It’s hard, and she still despises it on the worst days, but it’s become easier over the years. She can forgive herself for her actions on most days, and only hears her mother’s voice belittling her again on the very worst of days, the ones where nothing anyone says or does can convince her she made the right call in the face of the tyranny her family wielded so effectively.

Still, none of this changes the fact that the silent spaces in her life were filled once, a long time ago. In the time before, her life was filled with people she knew well, people who cared for her despite their cruelty and danger. Now, they are gone, leaving nothing but silence behind for her to remember them by.


	11. Craft (Prince Carl)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> Some mentions of death in this chapter.

For as long as he can remember, there’s been an empty shelf in his bedroom. 

His father told him once, on one of those rare days when he was in a reminiscent mood, that when he was very, very small the shelf had held a small heirloom of his mother’s family, one that his sister had taken with her when she first began to look into the future and saw the truth of her calling. His father never said anything else about the matter, but the expression on his face was enough to tell him exactly how his father felt.

So for years, the shelf has sat empty, half-mocking and half-tempting him whenever he glances in that direction. Part of him wants to put something there, to hide the emptiness where his mother and sister used to be, to pretend everything is fine, that it was always just him and his father rattling about the cavernous halls of the palace with sadness in their eyes. But it would only be another lie he tells to comfort himself, and so he leaves it empty and tries not to look at it too much.

Now, though…

Now, things are different. His sister is…well, not precisely returned, but more present than she was when the war was going on, and he now has two more siblings visiting regularly to bring light and life to the palace halls once again. His father is no longer alone, and his friends are no longer too consumed with their own affairs to be unable to come by and laugh or jest with him on the few nights where the memories do haunt him, where his father sits in the corner with that too-sad look on his face.

He never broaches the subject of the shelf with his father, though his half-sister tells him to go ahead and do it with the roll of her eyes and toss of her head that he’s come to learn means she wants him to this more than she’s willing to let on. But he thinks about it, thinks about crafting something small and simple to set there in place of a painful memory, something to honour his mother rather than to make him mourn her more than he already does.

The aftermath of the war has taught them how to mourn without pain, without being constantly haunted by spectres of the dead around every corner. He doesn’t believe this will be what finally eases his father’s pain, but he wants to believe that it will help, that it will lift his spirits to see the wife he loved so deeply memorialized for all eternity on the once-empty shelf in her son’s room. 

The man who now hovers by his father’s side nods slowly and carefully when he lays out his plan, a small smile creeping onto his face as he considers it. “You should do it,” he says at last, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “He’d like it, I think, even if he doesn’t necessarily say anything.”

It’s the closest to permission he’s going to get, so he decides to forge onwards. It’s nothing special, a simple craft that his mother made with his sister once, would have made with him if her illness hadn’t finally become too much for her to fight off. But his sister says it’s the right thing to make, and he cannot exactly argue with her when she can see every possible future laid out before her.

Perhaps he should have done something bigger or fancier, something that would have taken more time, more effort, but he thinks his mother would have liked the simplicity of this little craft. She likely wouldn’t have wanted him to put all of himself into it, when it was never meant to be the outlet for his grief.

His father smiles upon seeing it sitting on the shelf, filling in the empty space that was always too painful to look at directly, and he lets his doubts vanish to the back of his mind. This is enough, he thinks, smiling warmly as his father studies his little craft, the small memorial to the mother he never knew. It doesn’t need to be anything more complicated than this.


	12. Drip (Morfran)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

There’s a leak somewhere within this cave, though he doesn’t know where it is. The persistent _drip drip drip_ of the water irritates his brothers to no end, sets them to ranting and raving as they complain about the incessant noise, the persistent irritation that blocks their ability to focus and plan, to prepare for what they’ll do when they’re finally free of their cavern prison and able to walk the worlds once again. 

He stays silent as they go on and on about the dripping sound, letting them exhaust themselves on a worthless subject in hopes that they’ll be easier to deal with after that. They never are, of course, but it’s worth a try.

There’s really no reason for them to be as irritated by the dripping as they are, but they apparently suffer from an inability to function unless they can complain to their heart’s content on top of it all. They’ve always been like this, which is why he’s adjusted so well to living with the dripping sound—it’s nowhere near as terrible as dealing with his brothers is.

Why is he doing this, anyways? Why is he here, in this dark cave with nothing to do but listen to the water drip down and his brothers go on and on and on with no break or rest except when one or both of them is asleep? He never wanted any of this, never chose the life they’re living, so why is he following them, meek and obedient, when there are so many other choices for him to make?

 _You’re the elder among us_ , his youngest brother scoffs on occasion, when he’s being particularly unwilling to commit to any decision they’re trying to make. _Shouldn’t you be the decisive leader among us?_

He could be, if he wanted to. But he so rarely wants to, and maybe that’s why he’s in this position, trapped in a cave with dripping water and bickering brothers and too much resignation over a fate he could have easily evaded had he just chosen a few things, several or a thousand years ago. 

Perhaps this is a strange place to be having revelations about life and the choices of his past, but he has nowhere else to go. 

On occasion, he wonders what his brothers would say if they could hear his thoughts. Those occasions are few and far between, however, because he knows they’ll have nothing kind to say, no empathy for his confusion or doubt. They never have anything to offer but mockery and cruel words, and he has had more than enough of both from them to last several lifetimes.

He’s not eager to escape the cave, or at least not as eager as they are. The cave will never be defined as enjoyable, but it’s better than being up above, in a world where they have no choice but to do as their father orders or face the consequences. And while his brothers relish the idea of going out and wreaking havoc on the innocent people who’ve done them no wrong, he does not. 

But he’ll have to do it anyways, because in their father’s world there is no room for any possible doubt or uncertainty. If his thoughts were known, he wouldn’t have time to hear the cruel words of his brothers. He’d already be dead.

So here he would rather remain, in the cave with the dripping water, pretending he cannot hear his brothers as they mock and sneer and argue day after day, night after night, year after year. Because the alternative is far, far worse, and he is tired of being the puppet his family sets out on rare occasions, when they need the threat of his name and power but do not want to hear him lecture them about the dangers of what they are doing, what they have already done.


	13. Grow (Markus Viera)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> listen. I have no idea what happened with this one. I don't know if it's good or bad or if it's anything at all. it just happened, and now I have to go face the consequences of it.

Love is a strange thing. 

He’s spent most of his life learning that lesson, so he should know. For a few short years, he’s thought himself in love with a dear friend, someone he’d known all his life and considered more a sister when he truly thought about it. But, as his brother pointed out, his parents would have wanted them to marry, and so he tried to fulfill that obligation even though they were long gone and he felt nothing for her besides friendship anyways.

After that, though, things changed. He went north for the first time, finally invited to visit their northern neighbours as the leaders of three kingdoms gathered, and he met someone else. Well, two someones, but only one of them still haunts him today, in the middle of a war when his romantic issues are really the least important thing happening at present.

One, the one who slowly drifted out of his thoughts after enough time passed, was a prince, the sort of gallant, dashing figure he’d once dreamed would come bursting into his life and do..something, that part of his dreams had never been very clear. The other, shimmering and furious and impossible to ignore, was a warrior, one rumoured to be among the best their world had ever seen.

She was also completely unsuited for him, the very opposite of who his parents had hoped he’d eventually marry. So of course, he fell for her instantly.

From the beginning, he’d thought she’d never feel anything for him, or at least, nothing as intense as he felt for her. But he nurtured his love anyways, let it grow and grow and grow despite the impossibility of it, the knowledge that she was meant for greater things than the simple, serene life that was all he had to offer. 

He’d never anticipated this, though, in all those years of growing love and swelling affection and fear that someday he’d have to watch her die, burnt out by her own fire, her own skill. He’d never anticipated standing in the pouring rain, watching as the woman he’s loved for years walks away from him with tears in her eyes after telling him he shouldn’t love her, that he’s a grower and she’s a destroyer and they’ll never be compatible together.

His first instinct is to run after her, tell her no, no, that’s not true, that he loves her because she’s the destruction to his growth, the wild tangled bramble to his carefully tended garden. He loves her for being the opposite of everything he was supposed to love, everything he was supposed to live for, and he doesn’t _care_ that she can only see the darkness within herself, not the light and the passion and the fire that blazes so brightly it blinds him, some days. How can she say such things, when there’s so much she has to offer, so much _warmth_?

His second instinct is to just let her leave, which means his first instinct is right, for once. He chases her across the flat road, catches her arm, meets her gaze as she spins around and tells her no, you’re wrong, and you can’t walk away from me if you really love me.

Because, as it turns out, for all those years he’d been nurturing and growing his love, she’d been doing the same, until their love for each other grew into something so tall, so thick, so powerful, that there was no way to move past it, no way to look away and pretend it wasn’t real. It is real, and she’s terrified of it, and he won’t let her run away from the truth they both know.

 _You don’t want me,_ she tells him, desperation and pain and so much affection warring in her gaze, all grown and built up over years of being told she’s a killer, a weapon, nothing more. _I’ll destroy you. You’d be so much happier with someone else, someone as gentle and good and kind as you are._

He’s furious, suddenly, furious that she thinks so little of herself, furious that she thinks his love has grown so little that it can be ignored, pushed aside. And his anger, as little-grown as it is, lashes out of him, slinging at her as if he can pull her close with it and protect her from the world that told her she was wrong.

 _Maybe that’s so_ , he yells, angry and in love as the rain pours down, _but I want you. I chose you!_

She steps back, and he freezes, and they stare at each other as the rain falls and soaks the earth, making it rich and ready for new growth, for the bursting flowers of spring and summer as the last winter rain swirls around them. Then she’s in his arms, or he’s in hers, and their tears and their love mix with the rain, and his relief bubbles up in his throat and spills out before him, growing swift and tall as they sway together and the rain washes away everything else around them.


	14. Cornered (Princess Andrea)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> warnings for references to past abuse, both physical and verbal.

It’s been years since her mother died, yet she still can’t go into her old chambers. Every once in a while the servants will ask her if she wants to clean out the queen’s rooms and fully settle into her position, and she refuses every time. She can’t go back there, can’t go in and let the memories flood back in, the memories she’s been trying to ignore for so long.

In her dreams, she’s there again, cornered between her mother and the wall as the queen shouts at her, rages and snarls and picks away at the fragile shell she’s hiding in. In her dreams, she’s alone in the corner with bruises on her arms and a jagged cut across her hands, crying quietly as she tries to stem the flow of blood, to calm her pounding heart and settle her swirling stomach.

That room…how can she go back to the root of all her nightmares and reclaim it? Some might be able to look past all that went down in there, might be able to straighten their spines and say no, this is my home, the past will not push me away. But she has never had that kind of fortitude—one of the many things her mother despised about her.

Her friends, her advisors, they all know better than to push. Many of them were there to comfort her, to coax her out of the corner and bind the wound on her hand and speak soft words without pretending everything was alright. They all saw the worst her mother had to offer as well, even if they were able to evade the more…physical consequences of her wrath. 

She still fears those dark corners, the space in between a body and the wall, though she’s rarely ever in that situation anymore. Her friends aren’t the sort to corner anybody, and the few that are tend to reserve that for their enemies, not their allies. She has nothing to worry about, not with her mother long dead and gone, but she fears all the same.

She can’t help it.

There were so many years of violent words and cutting blows, cornered young girls and tall looming mothers. She cannot forget all those years so quickly, cannot pretend that her mother’s spirit does not haunt her, cannot pretend that she doesn’t still hear her mother’s voice in her head, telling her she’s worthless, a failure, a dimwitted fool who will never amount to anything and will be a terrible queen. She can try, of course, but trying will only get her so far. And that is not very far, not at all.

Some would encourage her to live her life in spite, to work to prove her mother wrong, but that isn’t her way. She hates what her mother did, fears her possible return, but she does not harbour bitterness, anger, hatred, not in the way some of her friends do. It’s never been in her nature to hold grudges, even when it comes to those who have hurt her, who have hurt those she cares for, who made her life a living nightmare every time they cornered her in that room she still is unable to go into.

Besides, she spites her mother every day by simply living, by walking the worlds when her mother does not, by ruling as best she can and keeping on the advisors her mother would have encouraged her to reject. And she does not think about her mother, does not think about those dark corners and those terrible words, because her mother only has power over her in dreams now.

And dreams can be forgotten. 

The sun still rises every morning, and she still sits the throne, and her mother’s ghost still lingers in the dark corners of the palace. But she continues, and that is enough. It’s more than she thought she’d get back in the darkest days, and she will not bother hoping for anything grander now.

This, this life she still has despite all the odds, is all she needs.


	15. Myth (Leonard Kelwyn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

When he was a child, his caretakers told him stories about powerful beings of light and magic, beings destined to protect the worlds from darkness and danger, beings so magnificent and delightful that there was no way there were actually real. He used to love those stories, used to beg to hear them on dark winter nights when the world seemed huge and terrifying, when he thought about the mystery of his family and wondered if he truly belonged in the life he was living. They used to be his comfort, his reassurance, his mooring point in the storm.

Now, he’s learned that he’s one of those beings from the old stories, from the myths his caretakers told him that weren’t really myths after all. The mystery of his family is solved, and his sister stands on the other side of the room, snarling at whatever fool has dared to cross her today. He no longer has need of the stories, not for protection or comfort or any of the other reasons he begged for them so often in his childhood.

There’s a part of him that still longs for the youthful comfort of the myths and stories, a part that still wishes he was in that time when the stories were merely stories and everything was simple and easy. But then he wouldn’t have this, wouldn’t have the easy camaraderie of a sister and a father and two half-siblings and a cousin and all the people he never had as a child, running amok among the other youngsters of a vastly different kingdom. And he has no desire to give this up, not now that he finally has the family he’d longed for during all those years alone. 

Still, there was a simplicity to that time when myths were merely myths, when his secret dreams to be one of the heroes of the stories were just that: dreams. His sister is all too aware of the toll being a hero of myth and legend takes, and he is equally aware after watching how that burden eats away at her, takes the best parts of her and twists them into a warped perversion of the shining, laughing girl she might have been once, long ago, before myths became fact and the heroes of old were them, not far-off figures bedecked in mist and smoke.

And now that they are at peace, they struggle, because there is no place in peacetime for the warriors of myth, for the great saviours who were honoured when they carried swords and lead armies into battle but are now fading away at the very fringes of the worlds. They find more to do, they can always find more to do, but the burden lies heavy upon them all the same. 

If war ever returns to their shores, he and his sister will be the first ones sent forth, the first ones called upon to defend this kingdom just as the heroes of the myths he used to love were.

And they will do it, because that is their duty, and doing their duty means protecting the people they care for and the innocent people who deserve better than a bloody, fiery death as their fate. But who will care for them, when all is said and done? Will any of the future myths remember that he was a healer first, and is still a healer no matter how much blood has come to stain his hands? Will they remember how his sister loved to dance, to ride with the wind in her hair until the rest of the world faded away?

Will they remember that they were human, or will they become glorified half-gods like all the rest?

That’s the thing about the old myths, he’s come to realize now that he’s apart of one. They never tell you how it ends. If the heroes don’t die in battle, then they fade, slow and bitter and weary. After all, what is a hero without a story to take part in?


	16. Hand (Lilliana Deeling)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development.

She’s well accustomed to remaining in the background by now, after years of hovering behind her better known friends, her nobler cousin, her more powerful commander. She knows how to blend into the background, how to act as her commander’s right hand yet be inconspicuous at the same time, overlooked and forgotten by all but the few she actually knows and trusts with her secrets.

At first, she hadn’t wanted to train with the others, had clung to her mother’s hand and begged to stay behind, to remain a child for just a little bit longer. But her mother had gently tugged her hand free and set her on the path of her duty, and now she knows better than to complain or gripe. Who will hear her if she does, anyways?

In truth, there are those who do hear her, who remember she is there and extend their own hands, offering advice or comfort if they feel she needs it. But they are few and far between considering she is cousin to a princess, niece of the queen, daughter of the third-most-powerful noble in her kingdom. She supposes that’s the way of things, though, when you serve a commander so mighty and powerful that no one can look past her to see her right hand hovering in the shadows, watching and waiting for the right moment to act.

Her purpose here was simple when her mother placed it into her hand and entrusted her with it, and it is equally simple now, even with the war raging all around them. The queen must be stopped before she goes too far, and her cousin must be placed upon the throne before someone moves to put her commander there instead. She will be instrumental in all this, should it occur, but once more she will go unthanked except by those few—her cousin, her commander, her friends—who remember her existence on the fringes of the council, on the outskirts of the noble life.

Having seen the burden of fame her commander must bear, she doesn’t mind it nearly as much as she used to. It’s hard work, being known. Remaining the silent right hand, standing in the shadows, is much easier.

There’s a few rare occasions where she wishes she could claim the spotlight as her friends do, but it usually passes once the queen turns her fury on whoever has stolen it from her this time. Those occasions are a stark reminder of her purpose, of the fact that she is not here to stand in the centre of the room and shout for attention. Her duty is to wait, and watch, and forge the connections that need forging for their purpose.

And she’s done very well at that, too. Her mother praises her efforts the few times they dare to meet, and those of her friends who know her duty have accoladed her for her work as well. Her commander values her even more, since they must work together both as warriors and as conspirators, and her friends and her cousin hold regard for her as their friend, more than the figure in the background. 

There are others, people she should probably be seeking the attention of if she intends to rise high in this world, but there are always those who will shine brighter than herself, and those people aren’t the sort she wants paying attention to her anyways. The queen, the queen’s chosen commander, and a few other figures on the council, they are the ones her mother cautioned her to avoid, the ones whose names her mother made her recite while pressing their hands together with an urgent look in her eyes.

Her uncle died because of that group, and it is for her uncle’s sake that she is here now. She must be the silent right hand, cannot afford to be anything else, because to stand out is to attract too much attention, and to attract too much attention is to invite dangerous questions, sharp prodding, and the cold eyes of a cruel queen sweeping into her secrets and unearthing their plot. 

And if the queen learns of what they are trying to do, then she will kill them like her uncle, and all they have worked so hard to achieve will be destroyed forever.


	17. Shelter (King Sloane)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

He would not call himself a brave man, if someone were to ask him. 

Sure, he can fight, can stand on a battlefield and charge at enemies he has no hope of defeating. Sure, he can stand up before his cruel fellow ruler and challenge her, decry her plotting and hatred as is only right, as so many others do as well. But he cannot reach out to his children, cannot provide them with shelter and comfort as he hopes to. He cannot pull them into the safety of his arms and protect them from the cruelties of the world, from the bleak nightmare of the war that now looms over them all.

To be a protector, a source of shelter, one must be very brave indeed. They cannot fear pain or suffering or rejection, cannot be afraid of death or torture or watching those they are meant to protect walk away. He does not fear pain, or death, or suffering, but he does fear watching people walk away. Too many have done that to him for him to not fear it.

He longs to shelter them all, his own children, the bright-eyed youngsters who he will have to watch march to their deaths, but he cannot. He isn’t strong enough, brave enough. He is not the saviour they need, not the figure that can step in and say no, you will not go off to war, I will protect you from it. All he can do is sit by and watch, horror and fear in his heart as they walk off, their heads held high against the nightmare that is about to descent upon them.

What sort of shelter can one man provide against the dark and terrible tide of war?

For all his power, he feels very weak and useless some days. He could not prevent his wife from dying, could not prevent his daughter from walking away, could not keep his son from losing the light in his eyes thanks to all the losses he had to suffer. He could not confess his feelings to the second woman he has loved, could not keep his oath to her daughter, could not stop the cruel queen from wielding them all like weapons rather than people. 

What use is he, if he cannot do any of those things? What sort of shelter can he provide, when he has failed those he was meant to protect so many times?

The list goes on. His friend, who he could not save from a shattered spine and broken dreams. His advisor, who he could not save from death when it inevitably came. His fellow queen, who he could not protect from the burden of her grief. His brothers, who he could not keep from cleaving apart and fighting endlessly until the death of one became fact rather than a distant fear.

There are some who might say he’s a protector, a shelter in the storm, but he’s clearly not very good at that. Every day, he learns of another hurt to add to the list. Every day, he sees his friend and his son and a dozen others who he let down. 

Every day, he must face the truth: he was never meant to act as a shelter in the storm, and he was a fool for ever thinking he could be one.


	18. Vintage (Queen Deirdre)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

In the first few years after the war ends, looking back at the past is like looking at a vintage painting, faded and remote. The days of the war seems distant and strange, and the days before it are even further from her comprehension. In the brilliant daylight of a world at peace, it’s easy to forget. Even she catches herself slipping, some days.

At night, though, the vintage tint to her memories fades, and she recalls that the years separating them from the war’s end can be counted on the fingers of one hand, that the nightmare they had to endure lasted for far longer than this tentative peace might, that she had to watch the warriors under her command die day after day after day, with no hope that she’d be among those who’d live to see the end of the war.

It’s much harder to pretend once night falls. She can no longer hide behind the thought of oh, well, years have passed, because not enough time has gone by for any of them to recover, not really. Her daughters are just as haunted as she is, and her friends are no better. The war they all endured was not some vintage thing captured in blurry images and faded memories. It was near, and real, and deadly, and their scars have not even begun to heal from the wounds it inflicted upon them.

She’s very good at pretending, but even she is not able to pretend none of it happened.

The physical wounds are healing at last, and the land no longer appears brutalized, ravaged by an invading army without any care for the damage it did. The survivors now have a new battle to face, the one inside their own minds, and this battle will likely last even longer than the first war did.

During some of the late nights, where she paces the halls, unable to rest, she studies the paintings of her ancestors and wonders if they found their lives easier, if the vintage images, faded and drab, show the truth of the life they lived. If she had the power of the girl who saved them all, she might be able to learn the answer for herself, but she truthfully does not want to know, and she most definitely does not want the girl’s power. 

As she has said many times over, pretending is much easier than admitting the truth. It is much easier to turn aside and let the blows glance off of her rather than accept them as they come, just as it is easier to wonder about the past than it is to live in the present, in this world where they won the war yet it defeated them all the same. The golden vintage sheen everything in the past has is no more real than her old dreams of peace in the midst of war, and she would be a fool if she truly thought that was the case.

But oh, how much easier things would be, then. She would not have to grapple with reconciling the vintage paintings and the bloody histories she has learned, would not have to fight with her own mind to prove that yes, the war has ended, she is safe. The false veneer of the past is all too easily shattered, but to pretend is even easier, no matter that it is merely a brief comfort amid the storm that has followed her ever since the end of the war.


	19. Fruit (Emyn Aaronsen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

Fruit was always a luxury for him, growing up. The desert sands of his homeland produce little in the way of crops, and while the orphanage was never desperate for funding or without support, no one there was wealthy enough to afford the imported fruits very often. He knows that’s changed in recent years, in the time between his leaving the orphanage and the end of the war, but that was how it was for him.

So it’s odd, now, to see fresh fruit on the table every day, to be able to casually take an apple without wondering if there will be enough for the others in his household. His life has changed so much since those days in the orphanage, running amok with his friends until they grew old enough to understand the world a little better. 

The fruit is a small change, but also one of the best markers of how different things are for him, and for everyone else as well. The war took its toll on them all, leaving scars both visible and invisible, shuffling the pieces on the gameboard around until he’s not certain how he made it from where he was to where he is now.

He sometimes wonders why his reward was so great when his contribution was so small, but then he remembers the last days of the war, how desperate and dark they were, and how his aid gave them a chance to recover for a little while, the opportunity they desperately needed to breath and plan and prepare for the final push, the last battle that won them the war after years upon years of struggling and failing. So perhaps his reward is deserved, perhaps he truly has earned a lifetime of fruit as thanks for his actions, no matter how small they feel to him.

Not that he’s complaining, or asking them to take it back. He’s not that foolish, not even close.

The brilliant glow of peacetime is reward enough, though everyone rolls their eyes in disbelief when he says so. But he will never deny himself the opportunity to savour the fruits that were once denied to him, even if he is still uncertain about how deserved they are. His childhood was not difficult or deprived, but there were a few things he never got to experience, and learning of them now has been a revelation for the ages.

He has been very fortunate, both to escape the worst of the war and to have been just involved enough to win praise and honour for his efforts in it. He cannot allow himself to forget his luck, even as he delights in his new opportunities and the fruit he once thought would be a luxury, far off and distant and impossible, for the entirety of his life. 

The war was vicious and cruel and awful and only touched him a little, and he will never recover from the horrors he witnessed during that time. He can hardly begin to imagine how those who were fully immersed in it from beginning to end feel now.

But it has ended at last, leaving him to enjoy fruit and sunlight and laughter with his friends, both old and new, and the family he has begun to find for himself among these people he has fought beside and will fight beside should war ever touch their homeland again.


	20. Glow (Victoria "Tori" Daelond)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

The hour before dawn and the hour after sunset are the best times to be on patrol.

During those times, the city’s alight with glowing golden light, shining and pure despite the messy political games and the grim war preparations constantly happening within. When she’s out on the walls, she can look inwards and imagine the city is always like this, glowing and golden, the first or last rays of sunlight playing on the walls and the buildings within them. When she’s on the walls, she can forget, even if it’s just for a little while.

She’s well aware that the city she sees from the walls at dawn or at dusk is nothing like the true city she knows during the day. Her position offers her an all-too-clear view of that particular mess, keeps her from truly appreciating this place she now calls home like she can when the setting sun makes everything glow in the last moments before it vanishes. She’s seen the dirty secrets hidden within palace walls and back alleys, knows the darkness lurking between towering walls. The golden glow of those perfect hours is an illusion, nothing more.

There’s no such glow within the palace walls, where politics rules supreme and no one can spare time for watching the sun set or long, leisurely rides through the forest. She cannot spare time to go on the walls every day at both sunrise and sunset, no matter how appealing the thought is. There are things to deal with, armies to manage, a kingdom to keep from crumbling beneath the fury of a queen who cares more for her own power than the people she is meant to be protecting.

She loves this city, loves the work she does here, but it’s exhausting. Every day, she and a few others fight to keep the rest in line, working tirelessly without any promise of reward or rest. The few hours she snatches for herself, on the walls watching the sun paint the city in glowing golden light, are not nearly enough to recover from the stresses and fears of each day, are not nearly enough to forget how dire things are becoming, how much she fears for this country, this fight.

The war is still so young, yet things are already going so badly. They have not lost a battle yet, are not in danger of losing at all, but every day a new enemy stirs, a thousand times more powerful than the one before. Too many of them are relying on myths and legends to save them, staking their fates on one young girl who is half-trained and barely aware of her own skill. Too many of them are forgetting how dangerous war is, even as it rages all around them.

But the war has not truly touched them yet. No enemy armies have made their way to their shores, no terrible battles have razed cities or utterly defeated them in any sort of conflict. Yet.

It’s only a matter of time until the golden glow fades and they must face reality, must confront the bitter truth that the war will come for them all eventually. She does not like it any more than the rest of the nobles do, but her position means she has no choice but to acknowledge this where they do not. 

They will, though. They’ll have to. The glow of ignorance will fade, and then they’ll have to face one of the greatest challenges they’ve ever confronted in the history of this grand and glorious kingdom they have all sworn to die protecting.


	21. Laugh (Jessa Carrington)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

She’s been accused a few times of laughing at war. The accusations have been more amusing than anything else, since they come from people who have shirked their duties or avoided the combat altogether, and she learned long ago not to let what others say faze her too much. But it’s odd to hear that people think she should always be serious, even when times are so dark that they need humour, need lightness.

So she ignores their accusations, because she knows war better than they do. It took her parents from her, haunted her childhood, ruled her life until only a year ago, when peace finally came on the backs of thousands upon thousands of dead. She fought in a hundred battles, planned and killed and bled for the sake of her country, and throughout it all she did her best to keep smiling, keep laughing.

Who would she have become if she hadn’t?

Her cousin has become grim and silent, a shadow stalking the halls rather than the vibrant young woman she could have been without the terrible conflict they were born into. Half her friends sleep restlessly thanks to nightmares, and the half that claims otherwise is lying. The scars linger on them all, and despite what she projects, she is not unaffected by what happened either.

She’s better at hiding it than most, though, and she did not lose the core of who she was out there, as her cousin and so many others did. She kept her humour, did her best to laugh when she could, and that protected her from the worst of things. It wasn’t always enough, but she tried.

Her friends are more appreciative of her attempts to make them laugh, savouring the one sense of normalcy, the one constant they had during both the darkest years and the lightest. They’ve all needed that, even though some pretend they’re fine without. If they can’t take a moment to laugh at some stupid joke, then what’s going to become of them when the war ends and they have to be human again?

It’s been a struggle for many of them, and she’s no exception to the rule. Her cousin is the worst of them, but too many of her friends lost touch with their humanity out there, in the dirt and blood of the battlefields, on the stone walls of the cities under siege, in the dim light of prison cells, on the political field that held just as fierce a conflict as the physical war. Laughter saved her from that fate, but it was a close thing.

Too close, if she’s being honest. She can laugh at a lot of things, but humorous topics run short in dark times, and she’s never been the sort who enjoys dark humour. Besides, doesn’t everyone want to feel a little lighter when the world seems so terrible?

She can only speak for herself and for those of her friends she knows have been comforted by it, but she likes to think that laughter can be the balm many need when the world is dark and dangerous, when they’re surrounded by enemies and in need of a moment of comfort before the battle begins in earnest.


	22. Alone (Celeste)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

She knows full well she has no right to complain about being lonely. She chose this life, chose to walk away from her family and friends in order to pursue this path. If she didn’t want to be alone, then she should have made a different choice when the options were presented to her.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, though. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss them, doesn’t mourn the life she could have had if she’d stayed. Looking into the future is a lonely business, but she imagines it wouldn’t be nearly as lonely if her family was with her when she did it. 

But that was never an option for her. She could not have both her duty and her family, a fact they are all well aware of. And her duty could not go unfulfilled, for there is no one else capable of replacing her at present, and likely will not be for the foreseeable future. And for her, the foreseeable future is very, very accurate.

Still, she would like to be around people more. She cannot spend all her time staring into the future, not without fear of losing touch of who she once was, who her family taught her to be, who she wished she could become when she was still a naive child who didn’t realize what her dreams meant, that not everyone looked into a mirror and saw a thousand different possibilities laid out before them. And the shadows are not exactly scintillating conversationalists, either.

There will come a time, she knows, when she will no longer be alone, when the others of her kind will learn the truth of themselves and join her in wandering the worlds. But that will not be for years yet, and until then she must deal with her loneliness the same way she has up until now, by watching and waiting and hoping from afar that the plans of those she still considers her family and friends succeed, that she does not have to watch them all die while knowing she must endure until her time in this role is up.

It’s the only advantage of teleportation she’s found, which is not nearly as exciting a power as it seems to be. Perhaps she’s been alone with her own thoughts for too long, but it grows dull when all she can do is travel from place to place in an instant or stare into the future she already knows as well as the back of her hand. The golden promises of immense power have much less appeal when she’s among that power.

On this matter, at least, she knows she’s not alone. The others, the few who are like her, they understand the burden they bear when they wield such immense power. They will soon learn how isolating it is, to be so powerful, to have to learn the secrets of their craft all alone. They can mentor each other, act as the guiding hands along the path to success, but it will not be enough to save some of them. 

She fears what might happen if the greatest among them dies before their time is up, if that means she will be alone for all eternity because the others cannot survive the battle that is sure to follow. But she cannot allow herself to think about that, because enough time peering into the future has taught her that nothing is guaranteed. Someone could make a choice tomorrow that would change all their fates, and for all her foresight she may not be able to see it coming.

So she remains here, alone with her knowledge and her power and the secrets her duties require her to keep, and she holds her tongue unless she has no other choice. Someday, she will be needed. Someday, she will take action, will stop hiding in dark shadows and the murky fog of the future and become the hero the worlds will need her to be. But that will not come for a long time yet, and she must remain alone until then, until the hour of darkness when the silver sword comes calling and she can no longer sit by when the worlds are in desperate need of saving.


	23. Revenge (Princess Alesandra)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

At some point during the many years she spent hovering between the realms of the living and the dead, she decided there was no point in attempting to seek vengeance for what befell her. 

Her initial fury and rage faded over the years, until it was more a dull sense of irritation than anything else, and while her blood still boils at the thought of her betrayal, she rarely finds herself dwelling on it anymore. She moved past the stage of misery and grief ages ago, until her strongest feelings about it faded and became nearly unrecognizable to her freshly-betrayed self.

It was somewhere during that time period, when her anger was still present but muted and dull, that she weighed the options and decided revenge simply was not worth her time. She could try it, of course, could shred her soul to bits and pieces in the pursuit of a brief moment of satisfaction that would only leave her hollow and sad after the fact, but why? What purpose would it serve her now? Revenge will not change the past, will not resolve the fact that she was betrayed, will not comfort her for the years she has spent caught between realms. What benefit is there to dragging this affair out for all eternity?

She would not have decided so had her time in the space between worlds been brief, but it stretched out for so long that she nearly forgot why she had cause to be angry. Her cause would be justified, should she choose to go seeking vengeance for what befell her, but she can no longer muster up enough emotion to care. 

It’s odd, how time makes these things so easy. She has not forgiven those who hurt her and betrayed her, but she will not waste her time and her energy hunting them down in some foolhardy quest for vengeance that will do nothing to heal her wounds, nothing to get even for the infuriating experience of being caught between worlds for thousands of years. At the beginning, and for a long time after that, she would not have been so magnanimous.

But she is weary of holding on to her anger, and now she is fully among the living once more, and she is finding much more satisfaction in savouring life and revelling in the world around her than she would had she gone off seeking vengeance on those who wronged her, who are also long dead by this point. This way is easier, and more fulfilling, and is even more spiteful because she is here and alive against all odds, exactly what her betrayers hoped would not happen to her.

In a way, that’s the best revenge of all.

So no, she will not throw herself away on a petty quest to seek vengeance when there is nothing worthwhile in it, nothing fulfilling or reassuring in rehashing old hurts and opening long-healed wounds of the past. Instead, she will choose to live, and revel in the fact that her enemies did not want this for her, that they would be furious and miserable if they were to see her now, healthy and happy and alive at long last.


	24. Teeth (King Dillion)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

When he was young, he preferred to shift into the larger, more powerful animals, great beasts of forest and field that hunted and fought and tore through their prey with sharp teeth and claws. Back then, the idea of being large and swift and powerful excited him, gave him a sense of security he didn’t always have when in his own skin. He sought the thrill of chases across vast plains, of the reward after a long, fierce hunt, of striking so effectively nothing else could stand against him.

But he was young, back then. Those were the days of endless energy, of challenging his sister to petty fights just to watch her rage when he cheated her near the end, of racing across the landscape solely for the sake of it. He hadn’t fought a thousand wars back then, hadn’t watched so many die for the sake of a fight they could not win. 

They were all very different in those days, it seems. The other rulers have grown as weary as he has, worn down by years of war and too much conflict among themselves. Their desire to bare their teeth and snarl and spit and rage has faded as their youth has, lost to the years that stole their desire to fight along with so much else.

These days, he’s much more comfortable as subtler creatures, the sort one wouldn’t look twice at if they encountered one wandering about in a shady glen or a city street. He’s most often in the skin of smaller creatures: a cat curled up in a sunbeam, listening in on private conversations; a fly huddled on a windowsill, watching two soldiers exchange half-meant jests; an ordinary songbird tucked into a leafy tree, observing deals that shouldn’t be taking place. He can do so much more in those forms, can discover secrets hidden to him when he prowled about as a much greater creature. 

Perhaps knowing the advantages of a subtler form earlier on would have aided him in much of his earlier years, but he already knows it would have made no difference. He’d enjoyed wielding teeth and claws too much, had savoured every conflict back when he did not have to live through war for years at a time. That sort of wisdom can only come from experience, and he did not have much of that in the days of roaming the wild in search of adventures.

He does not regret his time running and fighting, however, just as he does not regret the new knowledge time and experience have given him. If he had to go back, he would do it all again, both the teeth and the claws and the hiding and the listening. 

Both of them made him into who he is now, who he needed to become for the world to work in his favour. There is no need for him to regret that past, and he has no reason to believe that either of those sides of him will lead him to ruin in the future, not when the war is winding down and peace is on the horizon at long last.


	25. Flowers (Fianna Kelwyn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> my brain really wanted me to just write out the lyrics to flowers from hadestown for this one. fortunately, I managed to defeat my brain on this one.

She was not supposed to love the flowers.

Her love belonged to silver and steel, to the warriors of her homeland and the cold-eyed queen who ruled over them. Her heart was meant for hewn cliffs and sea-salt air, for the wind and the wild, for the thrill of the fight and of a horse racing across green fields. She should not have fallen for the desert rose, gentle and kind and carefully tended among the dunes and the stone. 

But she did, and now she cannot find a way to pretend and deny, not when it has been thrown in her path too many times. And for all her skill with the knives or on horseback, she has never been very good at confronting her feelings, even when it came to those she was supposed to experience, those that worked with her plan for the remainder of her life.

Nothing is so simple as that, however. It is all too easy to grow complacent, to presume that life is controllable and forget that the flowers do not always bloom in the same way, that love does not work the way anyone wants it to. 

The desert rose is gentle and kind, a sharp contrast to her blades and her cliffs and the salt and steel of her homeland. They are not a good pair, not like herself and the ice-cold queen she tried to love. She will drag him down into the depths of her own horror and tear him to pieces, make him into something he is not, make him into a twisted mirror of the man she fell for. 

She always did have a knack for killing the flowers whenever she tried to tend to a garden.

Besides, he is not hers, neither to have or to keep. His heart belongs to another, one as gentle and kind as he is, who will never destroy him because she does not know how to love properly. And she will not be the one to step between these two who love each other so well, who deserve each other in every way. Why should she interfere with such love, such kindness, if the only reason to do so is to feed her own darkness?

And if she loves him, if she truly loves him, she should want him to be happy, even if he does not find his happiness with her. She may have crushed the delicate petals of flowers in her grip one too many times, but she can do her best to refrain from doing so this time. 

She will never be the gardener, will never be able to keep the flowers of her love alive should he ever decide to choose her. She was never supposed to love him, and sitting by and watching is the cost, the price she must pay for reaching for more than she already has, for desiring a flower when she herself is a mere blade, meant for cutting and killing and not for tending to the flowers in springtime and watching them blossom vibrant and beautiful and bold.


	26. Costume (Princess Sameana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

She can’t recall the last time she was fully honest with someone.

Even her brother and daughter, the two people she trusts the most, can not be fully relied upon in such dangerous circumstances. She can tell them some truths, but not all, just as she is certain her brother has his own secrets he keeps hidden. To be fully honest, to let the costumes they hide behind fall away and reveal their true selves, is to be far more vulnerable than either of them would like.

Their father did teach them _one_ lesson, she supposes. Honesty is a weakness that runs rampant in their enemy kingdoms. Someday, their strength at disguising themselves will work in their favour at last, and then the war will be won, and the master will be satisfied.

It won’t turn her towards honesty, however. She quite enjoys the costuming and disguising of herself she does. Why should she give that up simply because the reason for doing so has passed?

Besides, there’s a merit to maintaining her costumes and pretences. Who knows when one of her own may turn on them and attempt to seize power for themselves? She and her brother did it so effectively it might give their inferiors dangerous ideas about their place in the world, and how easy it might be to usurp their betters. She cannot afford to let her guard down and take the risk of being overthrown. She will not repeat her father’s mistakes.

The risks are not the same for her, however. Her son is too much a fool to be able to successfully plot against her, and her daughter will never move against her, not when they are so alike. She can predict her children’s actions, can see past the costumes they wear because she taught them how to hide. She has nothing to fear from either of them, not like her father had reason to fear his own children.

No reason to fear will not be what makes her drop her guard and set her costumes aside, but it does mean she can relax a little once the war ends and their enemies have been brought down at last. Perhaps she can use the skills this war has taught her to seize greater power for herself, or to bring down the master when he grows complacent, as he inevitably will.

Yes, that will do nicely. The master’s power will not last forever, and when he falters she will be there, eagerly waiting to snatch up the crown and place it upon her own head. For too long, she has remained in the shadows, watching as her brother and their other allies claim all the glory for fighting and commanding. No one ever gives her credit for her costumes and disguises, for the fact that she has been the great puppet-master pulling the strings of their forces the entire time. The master may give her a few compliments here and there, but she wants more, always _more_.

Soon, she promises herself, day after day when the waiting seems interminable. Soon, the power will all be hers, and she can throw her costume aside and reveal her true nature to the worlds at long last.


	27. Midnight (Queen Deirdre)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of character death.

There’s a preternatural stillness that can only be found at the stroke of midnight, in the hour of greatest darkness, when the moon is high and the stars shine like jewels in the pitch-black curtain of the sky. This is her hour, the time when the world is at rest and no one can disturb her when she wanders down to the garden to sit in the place where her husband lies at rest.

She comes here during the day sometimes, when her daughters want to visit their father and don’t wish to do so alone, but only at midnight does she visit him alone and confess her hidden fears and secrets, the things she hides from even her closest friends and advisors. This is the only place she allows herself to cry anymore, and only ever at midnight when she knows she will not be interrupted.

Tears are her vulnerability, though she’s not fool enough to call them a weakness. But she cannot rule and mother her children and be vulnerable as well, not without breaking under the weight of all she must carry—alone, now, for her husband is dead, and her dearest friend as well. Weeping is a luxury she cannot afford, not anymore.

Perhaps if they were not at war, she could be more open about things, rather than saving everything for her midnight visits to her husband’s grave. But they are at war, and times are growing darker by the day, and she is beginning to think they are all living on borrowed time now. 

It seems they are destined to live out some great tragedy, where the world turns on them day by day until they are surrounded by enemies and wondering how they ended up at that point. She is not the only one she knows who has lost so much and stands to lose so much more, and she doubts she will be the last among them to suffer so. Even in her most despondent moments, on those terrible days where she does not want to wait for midnight to scream her rage and pain to the skies, she does not allow herself to forget that she is not alone in this, that others are grieving as much as her.

It would be foolish to think otherwise.

The younger ones, their children, they are doomed to suffer the most, or so she imagines. Already, tales have reached them of a young girl in their neighbouring kingdom more powerful and skilled than any other, a mere child who should not be fighting at all, let alone be the stake upon which half this world is pinning their hopes. And her own girls, her sweet, kind daughters, what will become of them once the war sweeps into their sheltered world and overturns everything she has worked so hard to build?

These fears, and so many others, seem to make up most of her midnight confessions as of late. As the war looms ever closer, and the horizon turns dark with the promise of devastation, she grows tenser and more afraid. Some would call her unduly cautious, but in such dark times it is difficult to be certain of anything, and she no longer knows who she can trust and who she cannot.

But the only time she can share any of this is at midnight, in between the dusk and the dawn, when the world is asleep and no one will wander into the gardens to see her furious tears.


	28. Treat (David Thompson)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

He’s always been fond of treaty negotiations, though he’d never admit as much to his sister for fear of being relentlessly mocked about it. Treating and dealing with other groups to obtain the best possible deal is enjoyable for him, much more so than the warrior life many of his friends and companions prefer. It’s much less dangerous, for one, and the work is consuming enough that he can forget the suffering they endured during wartime, and the scars that twenty years of peace have yet to fully heal.

It’s a rare treat, now, to be allowed to do the grunt work of the negotiations. The downsides of being promoted, he supposes, though he’s not complaining about any of the other benefits. He does miss it, though, being able to sit and hash out fine details for hours on end without any concern for the outside world or what might be going on around them. It was an escape from the darkness of the rest of his life for a long time—though, he supposes, he has much less need of escape now that the war has ended.

These days, he’s among those who oversee the negotiations, who watch the various parties as they treat with each other and volley terms back and forth, eager to reach a deal before they’re interrupted for the next meal. These days, his opinion is ranked higher than it was before the war, when he was just one of a dozen other junior diplomats hoping to win the esteem of his superiors. 

So many things have changed since the war ended. His own rise in status is perhaps one of the least significant changes, yet he’s been deeply impacted by it all the same.

Before, he spent half his time lurking in his sister’s shadow, occasionally enjoying the brief treat of stepping forward into the spotlight for himself. He’d always vanish into the background eventually, never significant enough to capture the attention of those whose gazes were always fixed on his more exciting and skillful peers. He doesn’t harbour any jealousy towards those who received the bulk of the attention, particularly not after seeing how that early attention bore down on them until they were nearly crushed beneath the weight of the expectations upon them, but he would have liked to have been given a chance, at least.

It’s strange to be out of the shadows now, to be able to stand up and say his piece and be listened to after years of watching and waiting, hoping his time would come someday soon. He’s not fully certain he likes it—another thing his sister would find greatly amusing, should he ever tell her.

But that’s the way of the world, or so he imagines. When something is a far-off ideal, a rare treat that one is seldom allowed, it seems far more golden and exciting than it truly is. Being ignored is much more preferable now that he is being noticed, and being noticed was a far more exciting prospect when he was being ignored. 

These are all petty concerns, however. He can still remember the war, can still remember the horrors so many of them endured, and he’s more grateful than anything else, grateful that they’re able to savour their lives, the fact that they won and can heal and be at peace, and that is worth far more than any treat he once longed for can ever be.


	29. Need (Markus Viera)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

He so very rarely asks for things anymore.

When he was young, his brother would spoil him with whatever he wanted, gifts and books and toys to keep him from thinking too much about their parents, and how they would never return. He never needed anything back then; it was all given to him by his brother or one of the nobles who took care of them in those first years, until he was old enough to sit in on the meetings and understand the danger they were all in. He knows he was spoiled, and so he tries to refrain from making too many demands now for fear of carrying that mentality and passing it on to his children.

His wife, in contrast, has never asked for anything in her life. She learned at far too young an age that her skill, her ability, would bring some unwanted request alongside what she desired, and so she never asked for anything in fear of being made to do something she didn’t want to. 

He does not begrudge her that, but sometimes he would like it if she asked, if she told him what she needs so that he is not constantly guessing. On the dark days, when she withdraws from him or vanishes from the house for hours at a time, he is often left hesitant and uncertain, trying to reach out to her only to be rebuffed, asking her if she needs anything only to be told to leave. He knows she saw the worst of the war, and that she still bears the scars, both physical and mental, from everything that happened, but he cannot help her if she does not ask, if she does not _try_. 

And it hurts, because he loves her dearly, and he knows she would despair if she knew her fear of asking for what she needs hurts him. That was why she hesitated, why she almost refused to accept his love. Her fear of hurting him is the one thing he knows she needs to overcome at times, and he knows the issues go deeper than that but he doesn’t know how to help her.

He should just ask her, he knows, but he has been trying very hard to not demand too much of anyone, and even though he needs this, they both need this, it is a difficult habit to let go of. But they cannot exist in this limbo forever, where he hovers around her when she crumbles under the weight of whatever burden she carries, both in need and terrified to ask for help. It will destroy them, and they have come too far together to allow that to happen.

Soon, he promises himself, gazing at the golden sun, at his wife laughing with their children in the garden. Today is a good day, a day when the old scars do not hurt as much. It will be easier to have the conversation they so desperately need to have when they are not haunted by the war and the terrible past that brought them together.

As he watches, she looks up and smiles at him, brilliant and joyous, and he’s struck by a sudden need to join them in the garden, to laugh and play with his children, to embrace the woman he loves under a sun shining down on a world at peace. They bought this for themselves, and paid dearly for it, but they are _here_ , and they are together, and they will face this struggle as they always do.

He does not need to be indoors right now, so he hurries out the door to be with his family in the garden, needing to savour the sun and the smiles and the sharp, piercing joy that still strikes him sometimes when he remembers that the war is over, this is real, and that they can be happy at long last.


	30. Flight (Arianne Thompson)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.

The thrill of the wind whipping past her as she runs or rides cannot possibly match the thrill of flight when she shifts forms. As a bird, nothing can stop her besides a larger predator in the area, and her other form is dangerous enough that she rarely must contend with this issue. Nothing can stop her when she flies, very unlike when she’s on the ground and must face reality, the war and the politics that make her wish she’d stayed away from the capital.

When she was young and living in a smaller city far from the political mess that she’s now fully embroiled in, the capital seemed like a golden place, a far-away fantasy that led her and her brother there in search of the promise they thought it hid. She hadn’t longed for a chance to fly away from it all back then, mainly because she had yet to understand the dark secrets lurking beneath the shining walls and the soaring palace.

Now, she’d give anything to spend her days in the skies, or beneath them if she’s too tired to shift forms. There are no obligations for a bird. She doesn’t have to think about the war marching ever closer to their shores, or the latest battle between the queen and the nobility, or the fact that her brother is in very real danger because he loves the princess more than the queen. She can forget that she’s in love with one of the leaders of a dangerous conspiracy trying to save them all from destruction, that one of her dearest friends is being torn apart by duty and her own power.

When she’s in flight, the wind rips it all away from her, and she’s all that’s left, soaring over cities and fields and forests without a care in the world.

If she was actually an animal, it likely wouldn’t be so simple. She’d have to hunt, and evade predators, and seek protection when the worst of the elements come sweeping in. She wouldn’t be able to shift back into herself and eat a well-cooked meal in the safety of a sturdy house, knowing she’s largely safe from anything that might try to hunt her down. But she can shift between forms, and so for her flight is an escape from the parts of her life that she would much rather avoid.

She won’t be able to do this forever, she knows. Eventually the war will come too close, and she’ll be trapped on the ground until it’s over and they’re all safe from whatever enemy is marching on them now. Eventually, the political turmoil in the capital will reach a head, and she won’t be able to run away to the skies once that happens.

They are living in dangerous times, however, and it is a reassurance to know she has an escape, no matter how temporary it may be. As long as she can fly, she can flee for a little while, and though she’ll always come back to the ground eventually, she savours those moments of flight, those moments where it’s nothing but the wind and the sky and the entire world laid out beneath her, small and remote, with all its trouble left on the ground below.


	31. Reflection (Princess Alana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from oc-growth-and-development on Tumblr.
> 
> :( last day but also yay this was exhausting (I say as I prep for NaNo like a fucking fool)

The sun rises the same as always the day after the war ends, and she watches it from the city walls, wondering why she’d thought it would be different now that the war is over and they are at peace. Of course the world continues, uncaring of the scuttling of the humans, of their petty wars and disputes. Why should it pause or change for them, when they have never once changed for it?

She’s oddly reflective today, this first one after the war’s end, though she supposes it makes sense when the world as she knows it is changing around her. This will be the first year of her life where her people are not at war, and she has no idea what that will look like, how it will be when they are not constantly fearing attack or death or suffering. 

Today is a day for reflection, while the wounded recover and the dead are buried. She is not the only one wandering away from the palace, from the heart of it all, seeking solitude where she can sit and reflect on what has brought them here, on how they won the war and how they will move on now that it is done. This is the end of an era, and they must learn how to deal with the changing times now before the tide of the world sweeps them away when they are still not prepared to move on.

The city around her is the same as it ever was, yet there’s a difference among the people that would be difficult to grasp if she didn’t feel the same way, as if a massive weight has been lifted from her shoulders, as if she can breathe again, as if she can _live_ for the first time in years, maybe ever. These are not her people, and this is not her home, but they are all kin now, united by the war that swept through this city and turned it upside down, by the battle that was fought and won within its walls the day prior, by the hero now lying still and pale and recovering in the palace in the city’s centre. 

She smiles a little at that reflection, at the strangeness of war being the great unifier among seven such different peoples. If they are lucky, if they are very lucky, it will stick, both the peace and the alliances forged in wartime. They cannot afford to endure this a second time. They will not survive another war so soon, something she knows all too well as one of the many leaders who fought and bled and survived this terrible war.

Would her father be proud of her, she wonders, if he had lived to see the worst of the war and seen her fight in it? She never knew him, not really, so it’s hard for her to say. By all accounts, he was not a violent man, but war shapes them all into things they are not, twists them and warps them until they become exactly what they hoped they wouldn’t be, exactly what they always feared. She has been spared the worst of that, for she was never called upon to sacrifice her entire being for the sake of the rest of the world, but she has friends who made themselves into their own worst nightmares just to win a battle, just to end the war.

She does not know the answer, but reflection is not meant to reveal the answers. It’s only meant to offer possibilities, a chance to run over what has happened and what may happen next and consider how things will change now that the world is continuing on. There’s a great deal to reflect on—heroes and rewards and grieving and healing and punishments and trials—and she will have to deal with it all. Tomorrow.

Today, she is taking the time to look at the world and herself and reflect on who she is, and who she might become in a world at peace. Everything else can wait, at least for a little while.


End file.
